"The Wizard´s Assault" by Travis W. Herring

The air outside crashes with thunder and lightning, the year’s worst storm crashing in over the Furiekin stronghold. The forest citadel is lashed by pounding wind and rain, forks of wicked electricity flashing through the sky to disappear in thick, dark clouds along the horizon. The guards on the walls and in the forest itself huddle into their thick cloaks, trying to not be washed away in the terrible fury of the tempest.

Inside, behind stone walls and glass windows, comforted and cocooned from the angry storm, Queen Pirotess of Clan Furiekin lies on a divan, watching her favorite string quartet play the Ballad of Al’Asram. The tale of their most famous member always brings a smile to her eyes, and she relaxes against the silken surface of her seat. Around her, spread throughout the opulent chamber, the rest of the Furiekin court resides in similar seats, reclining comfort while they listen to the bard sing his song.

The Victory of Al’Asram, the single brightest star in Furiekin’s long history, is a popular tale. His solo defeat of the assembled court of the humans during the North War rocketed the Furiekin household and attending clan into the heights of fame and fortune. His masterful attack on the assembled lords of the Alliance saw their leader struck down and the misfortunes that had befallen the Lords of Nachtig reversed upon their enemies.

For this, the Lords of the Eight Keeps had long been grateful, showering the clan with wealth and favor. For this, as well, Clan Furiekin has many enemies, whose fortunes waned as the clan’s increased.

Pirotess, the very same Queen who sent Al’Asram on his fateful mission, is almost equally well know, if not necessarily for this act, by the peoples of the Empire. It was by her decree that Al’Asram was sent alone into the flames of war. Her choice that he should fulfill the requirements of the Eight. It is also her management that has brought the Furiekin to the height of their power.

She regularly speaks with the various lords of the Dark City (as it is called in her native tongue). She has cavorted with Demons, so the ballads claim. She has drunk the blood of lords and ladies, they say. She has been to the bottom-most layer of hell and slain the watchers over the gates of Eternity, returning with nary a scratch on her, it is whispered on dark nights like this one.

And when she is not out slaying the world, as is her right and duty as Queen of the most dangerous assassin clan in the history of the world, she relaxes against her rose-colored silken divan and asks her bard to sing the song of her brightest moment.

So it is, on this fateful night, when the lightning crashes amidst the trees and the rain falls like rocks upon the roof of her home and citadel. So the music plays, drifting along and through the high, vaulted ceilings of her central court. The enraptured Elves sit quietly, staring into the distance ahead of them, remembering their brightest moment, four hundred years ago.

Since then, their Queen has slain others, and ordered men of power to be killed by men like Al’Asram. She has personally fought men more powerful than those slain at the Alliance meeting. Men capable of bringing Nachtig down as it should have been when the Alliance was destroyed. But none of them have ever provided the glory of the moment when, with a single throw, one Furiekin slew seven Lords of Light and their King. None have ever provided the same impact as that one night, which secured the fame and fortune of her entire clan.

It is a tall order to live up to. The Furiekin who did the slaying has since retired into seclusion, taking with him only the Furiekin woman whom he loved. No one knows of Al’Asram’s current location, or if, indeed, he is still alive. Dark Elves live for a long time. Not forever, like the Humans, with their short life spans, seem to think, but long enough to get close. He could yet live. Or he could have fallen victim to the Draining, that mental state where the Elf allows his mind to recede into the racial memory and never return, leaving his body to waste away while his mind wanders history and relives the brightest moments of Elven history.

Certainly, the other races serve their purposes. They populate the world, keeping reign on the animals and creatures that would offset the balance. In their own strange way, the races balance the world as well. Were the Furiekin actually allowed to kill everyone as many of her detractors would wish, the balance would be destroyed, and the Furiekin themselves would die.

But few stop to think about that. Few, but Pirotess. And she is too frightened by her own thoughts to actively speak of them to her own court. To show weakness in her position would be to find herself at the wrong end of a dagger in the dark of night. She has seen others who have brought this ‘novel’ concept up in court openly despised and actively destroyed, their influence in court worn to a thin tatter of what it had been before they had brought it up. No, she thinks. This is not the place to bring up her curiosity about the outside world.

The Ballad of Al’Asram still draws a chill when she hears it. How a single man could destroy an entire court with a few handfuls of daggers is still beyond her. Yet, like the others of Clan Furiekin, she has thought deeply on this and seen the failure the Humans had committed. In their arrogance, they had not thought to protect against a final, desperate assault on their very stronghold; the very center of their rebellion against Nachtig. Their King and his court had been their everything. With the court’s fall and the King’s death, everything about the Alliance came crumbling down around them.

Within a few months of Al’Asram’s attack, the Northern War might not have happened, the world had so returned to its old ways. A war fought in stealth and intrigue, no open battles had ever been fought that could be avoided. The two sides had moved their armies and diplomats like chess pieces on a world-sized board. And Nachtig had lost, concentrating its forces up front for a single, massed attack at their core, while the Alliance moved spies and saboteurs behind. The night before the Nachtig army attacked, the Alliance’s own version of the Furiekin had struck, disabling nine-tenths of the army’s ability to function, leaving it vulnerable to the attack, the next day.

When the Alliance army appeared on the horizon that day, the Nachtigans surrendered before even a handful of men had been killed, their leaders having quickly surmised that they could never win. The only way to avoid a slaughter of the entire Nachtig army was honorable surrender. Simultaneously, the Lords of the Eight Keeps were brought before the King of the Alliance, through deception and powerful magic. Nachtig was brought to its knees.

It is when the bard sings of Al’Asram’s entrance through the uppermost level of windows that Pirotess gets chills. For she has learned all of the great hero’s tricks and spells. She has studied, by her own decree, under Al’Asram himselk, until she was a master of his skills. She can now do what Al’Asram did by himself that night. She could see the end of an entire empire.

She knows this. That power, available at her beck and call, surprises her. For she does not feel like the killer of empires. Yes, she has slain those who were not prepared for Furiekin assault. Yes, she has silently slipped in amongst the leaders of Nachtig’s enemies time and again and slain those whom she had been sent to slay. She has killed, spied, and stolen, as any member of her clan is required to do to retain their status within the clan.

But all of that experience, all of that ability, does not feel as if it makes a difference to her. Her people are brought up to think that those beyond the walls of her citadel are not worthy of living, should a Furiekin cross their path. That the looks of fear their victims give them when they realize they are about to die by the hands of the Dark Elf they have woken up looking into the eyes of, are only those of animals, not worthy of compassion or mercy.

"Not of Furiekin blood," so the ancient saying goes, "Not truly alive."

The translation, so the teachers say, is that a creature not truly alive does not matter in the grand scheme of things. Therefore, their death means little or nothing to the world. Only those who have reached the heights of power and influence are worthy of a death by Furiekin blades. And even those few are not considered ‘alive’ by the Furiekin who kill them.

It is during the quiet set, just before Al’Asram glances about the room of the court he has just turned into chaos and has to fight the guardsmen, that the court doors swing open silently of their own accord. A single figure, clad in a heavy cloak, marches into the room, oblivious to the warnings and weapons unsheathing throughout the room, his eyes boring into Pirotess’. For a moment, her mind is made to believe that it is he of whom the song tells, Al’Asram, returned from seclusion. And then, the heavy hood is thrown back to expose the face and head within.

It is a blonde head, not the pale white of the Furiekin hero. Blue eyes are set in a sharp-featured face, eyes that pierce her to the core even as the musician freezes in mid-stroke along the strings. At the widening of her eyes, a subtle maneuver, but one keyed for response, the entire court comes to its feet, ready to defend her if need be.

But the figure only stands silently before them all, the rain and thunder outside audible even through the long corridors he has stalked to get here. His eyes pin Pirotess to her seat, keeping her seated, unable to move, like a mouse staring at the cat.

Around the figure, Elves are beginning to stalk back and forth, their overconfident glee at the opportunity to capture and toy with the intruder obvious in their faces. Weapons weave to and fro before them, and magics spark the air with a prickle along the skin not unlike that one gets when near lightning itself.

Pirotess’ favorite, an upcoming Furiekin by the name of Cael’an, is the first to throw himself into the fight. Yet, even as he does so, the courtroom windows explode inward with a clap of thunder as lightning strikes the courtyard beyond. Glass shards shatter across the room, fixed in place for a microsecond amidst the light.

Pirotess is caught by the dark glare of those pale blue eyes, stuck to her seat as if a passive observer of some grand game of chess being played out before her. The windows darken as the lightning passes, the Furiekin in the room recovering their sight even as invaders crash through the remains.

"To the death!" Furiekin around her cry. Leaping to her defense, they cut off approach to their queen even as she sits, still on her divan. Time resumes its inevitable pace, and the slaughter commences.

Shadows seem to boil through the windows, given shape and substance straight out of the Furiekin Clan’s nightmares. Enemies as timeless as the Furiekin themselves charge through the windows Goblinoids of every shape and size. Bodies begin to fall, blood begins to spill. And still, Pirotess is fixed by those blue eyes.

She watches as her favorite Cael’an throws himself at the visitor from the shadows beside the open door. While the intruder brought down the lightning and opened the way for his attack to begin, her favorite moved behind him, taking up position and launching himself when the time was right. He recoils, just out of reach of the blonde wizard, crashing to the marble floor at the man’s feet. He shakes his head, surprised at the fact that his blade is not, even now, tearing through the invader’s body.

The blue eyes turn, releasing Pirotess from her forced paralysis. A flash of light surrounds Cael’an, and the young Furiekin screams. Like a rag doll, he is tossed across the room, back toward his hiding place, into the unforgiving marble walls that surround her courtroom. His body shatters, falls to the ground, boneless.

Pirotess feels the scream in her throat ripped physically out of her body as those eyes flick away, finally freed to scream with anger and loss. She is on her feet before they can return to her own, freezing her in position again with some kind of magic she is unaware of. If he can do that to Cael’an, what can he do to the rest of my people? What can he do to me!?

The figure, believably solid a moment before, becomes immaterial. Pirotess can see the wall behind him, the outline of his body limned in the candlelight for a moment before he is gone. The room around her calms instantly as well, the attackers dead to a man within the great room. A handful of Furiekin bodies lie on the marble floor, their blood mixing with that of the invaders. The others show signs of a prolonged fight, one longer than the one she remembers. Blood drips from wounds caused by invading blades.

"My Queen!" a bleeding Furiekin exclaims, crossing the room. "Are you harmed?"

Without considering protocol, he steps onto the dais to stand beside her. Examining her professionally with his eyes, he assures himself that she is not wounded before turning back to the room. "We must find this person and kill him for what he has done! For violating the sanctity of our citadel!"

There are cries form the rest of the Furiekin still present. Some have gone off to investigate how it is that he walked through their lines of security, past the wards and glyphs that should have killed him before he ever reached their innermost sanctum. Others are fetching first aid gear, to aid those still living. Cries rise that those on watch should immediately be executed for failing in their duties.

"It is the only way!" they cry.

"There could be spies in our midst!"

"No," Pirotess says suddenly, silencing the rapidly rising voices. "There are none here who are responsible for this attack, save one."

"But they broke through our wards, my Queen!" The one who came to her dais says hotly. "He attacked our court! He tried to kill you!"

Angrily, she shoves the wounded Elf off the dais and assumes an air of command. Coldly furious, she glares at the assembled Furiekin in the chamber surrounding her. More arrive even as she speaks. "There will be NO executions of the guards," she declares. "This was a personal attack on myself by someone beyond our power."

Her heart growing as cold as the fury that resonates in her voice, she eyes the crumpled form of her favorite on the far side of the hall. "I will personally deal with this attack. Is that understood? Personally! Such attacks are not to be abided, and I must personally make certain that this lesson is understood." She forces the tears that threaten at the corners of her eyes to disappear. Showing weakness now would be a call for those jealous of her power to try and make a move. She has already shown weakness, simply by allowing this attack to occur.

There are unhappy murmurs about the room as she glares at each individual present, holding their eyes for a moment before each lowers his or her eyes in deference to their Queen. They are not happy, but they are in no position to threaten her right now. There are more important things to consider. Pirotess can see the urge to throw themselves mercilessly at their attacker in their eyes. To hound him until the day he finally does slip up and dies beneath a Furiekin blade.

But she does not know who he is, or even where to begin looking for him. To throw her people into a search like this would break them, send them across the Empire, searching for one man, while their influence and power goes to waste.

No, this is a mission meant solely for her. He was a Human, or at least appeared to be. She believes he wants her to know or at least to learn who he is, if only so she will know who it was she killed to earn his enmity. She saw the real man tonight, even if no one else did.

He will be found in the cities of the Humans, she knows. His clothing was of high quality and class. Therefore, he must be a member of the gentry or other upper echelon of Human society. And therefore, she thinks, grinning darkly, findable.